Description

Small metal-containing molecules were produced in a laser ablation supersonic jet apparatus. The products were investigated by means of millimeter/submillimeter wave spectroscopy and optical spectra were recorded with a high-resolution grating spectrometer (HR2000+, OceanOptics).\\
This method has been applied to study AlO produced from laser ablation of solid aluminum seeded in helium-buffer gas enriched with 2\% of nitrogenous oxide. The adiabatically expanding dilute gas mixture is probed by monochromatic radiation of frequencies up to 400 GHz (WR2.8x3,Virginia Diodes Inc.). The measurements reveal the hyperfine structure of a linear molecule in Hund’s case b$_{\beta S}$ due to the nuclear spin of aluminum. With the present measurements, new high accurate line positions for future astronomical observations and more accurate molecular parameters are available. The new data were compared to high level ab initio calculations performed by the group of J. Gauss.